'Racially Resentful'

Dissecting the latest bogus tea-party poll.

By

James Taranto

Updated April 29, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

(Note: We'll be off fishing Friday, returning Monday.)

They won't give it up. "Are Tea Partiers Racist?" asks a Newsweek.com headline, apparently written under the mistaken impression that this hackneyed charge is still provocative. The subheadline reveals that the story doesn't even speak to whether the tea-party movement is racist but rather makes a more modest claim: "A new study shows that the movement's supporters are more likely to be racially resentful."

Well, what do you expect? If politicians and media personalities want to stir up resentment around the question of race, what better way than by badgering people with false accusations of racism?

It turns out, though, that the study doesn't even demonstrate what it purports to. Here is the claim, as described by Newsweek:

A new survey by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality offers fresh insight into the racial attitudes of Tea Party sympathizers. "The data suggests that people who are Tea Party supporters have a higher probability"--25 percent, to be exact--"of being racially resentful than those who are not Tea Party supporters," says Christopher Parker, who directed the study. "The Tea Party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race."

We know this is going to be hard to believe, but the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality, which immodestly goes by the acronym Wiser, has an ax to grind. According to its mission statement, its purpose is the "examination of issues of social, economic, and political exclusion and disadvantage of marginalized minority populations in the United States."

When the institute refers to "marginalized minority populations," it hardly need be said, its definition does not include dissenters against the party that currently holds political power. Rather, it understands "marginalized minority populations" as meaning certain racial, ethnic and sexual-orientational subpopulations--including at least one subpopulation that includes the president of the United States! Marginal indeed.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. A group whose purpose is to see the world in terms of race is going to collect and structure its data in such a way as to show that whatever it is studying is "about race." And yet the claim of "racial resentment" turns out to be baseless.

The institute's "2010 Multi-State Survey on Race and Politics" covers seven states. Survey participants were asked what they think of the tea-party movement; those who "strongly approve" were cast as "true believers"; those who "strongly disapprove," as "true skeptics"; and those whose opinions were weak or neutral as "middle of the road." To gauge their racial attitudes, they were asked whether they agree or disagree with the following statements:

 "Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without special favors."

 "Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class."

 "Over the past few years blacks have gotten less than they deserve."

 "It's really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites."

"True believers" were most likely to agree with the first and last of these assertions and to disagree with the middle two. The opposite was true of "true skeptics," with "middle of the road" indeed producing consistently middling results.

So what does this tell us? We'd say it's fair to characterize the first and last assertions as representing politically conservative views about race and the middle two as expressing liberal ones. The more that one sympathizes with the tea parties, then, the more likely one is to assent to conservative views on race, and to reject liberal ones. Wow, stop the presses!

As for the claim that conservative views on these questions reflect "racial resentment," however, the survey provides no evidence one way or the other. It did not plumb the emotions of the participants, who were given a prepackaged assertion and permitted only a binary response. It's possible that agreement with a statement like "Blacks should do the same without special favors" reflects a resentful spirit, but it could also reflect a respectful one--a confidence that blacks are as capable as anyone else.

When Parker asserts that tea-party sympathizers are "racially resentful," then, he is imputing to them his own emotional reactions to the questions. The entire exercise illustrates only that political liberals are predisposed to believe that politically conservative views on racial matters are the product of resentment. It would not surprise us if this belief is true in some cases, but by conflating viewpoint and motive, this survey merely presupposes what it purports to prove.

The Butterfield Health Insurance Plan "Americans are steadily losing confidence in their ability to get healthcare and pay for it, despite the passage of healthcare reform legislation, according to a survey published on Wednesday," Reuters reports from Washington.

You've got to love that "despite." It's a little like the old Fox Butterfield fallacy: Prison population growing despite reduction in crime. Meanwhile, an Associated Press report suggests that the Democrats are trying to make the best of an awful situation;

Democrats plan to portray Republicans as obstructionists while calling themselves "the Results Party," chairman Tim Kaine said Wednesday in what he acknowledged will be a difficult political year for Democrats. . . .

He sought to highlight Democrats' accomplishments and focused on economic recovery, health care overhaul, improved international relations and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Give him this much: Justice Sotomayor was in fact confirmed. But with unemployment near 10%, ObamaCare a monstrosity, and President Obama responding to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons by issuing orders to Israeli zoning authorities, the Dems would be better off if they could deny they've gotten results.

The Results Party

"President Barack Obama scolded Virgina [sic] Republican Rep. Eric Cantor for the stack of paper he brought with him to the health summit, calling it the type of political stunt that gets in the way of lawmakers having a serious conversation."--Associated Press, Feb. 25

"Visitors to Ted Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery last month were surprised to see a copy of the gazillion-page health care bill on his tomb with a note from Patrick saying, 'We finally did it, Dad.' "--Boston Herald, April 29

Specteral Analysis From the "Suuure, We Believe You" Dept. comes this report in the Morning Call of Allentown, Pa.:

At times, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter [R2D2., Pa.] has wondered if he should have stayed a Republican.

For three decades, Specter prided himself on being a coalition builder, relishing a self-appointed role as a liaison striving to find the moderate solutions to liberal and conservative extremes.

Now as a Democrat, that role has vanished. For that reason alone, Specter has questioned his storied party switch.

"Well, I probably shouldn't say this," he said over lunch last month. "But I have thought from time to time that I might have helped the country more if I'd stayed a Republican."

Specter mused that perhaps if he'd remained in the caucus he could have persuaded one or two of his GOP colleagues to support health care reform. Not one Senate Republican voted in favor of it, but he swears he would have regardless of party affiliation.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that "since changing parties, Specter has voted with the Democratic leadership 95 percent of the time--98 percent so far this year, according to Congressional Quarterly." He did buck his party with some frequency when he was a Republican, though not 95% of the time. So while the Republican Specter arguably lived up to his claim to be a "moderate" alternative to "liberal and conservative extremes," the Democratic Specter is just another liberal.

Can we believe his claim that if he had stayed a Republican, he would have voted for ObamaCare? Consider his situation when he switched parties: He had just voted for the so-called stimulus package, a bill opposed by every other Republican in Congress save two (both Maine senators). A little over a year away (now next month) was a primary that pitted him against a conservative former representative, Pat Toomey, who nearly beat him in 2004. Defeat was near certain.

Had he stayed a Republican, a vote for ObamaCare would have dashed whatever hope he had of winning the primary. It's true that politicians have been known to act out of principle, even if it means sacrificing their re-election chances. But is Specter such a politician? In the unlikely event that the question doesn't answer itself, here's another one: What explanation other than expediency could there be for his decision to switch parties when he did?

Wednesday was a terrible day for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the worst so far of the British election campaign. On a campaign swing near Manchester, the embattled leader of the Labor Party encountered 66-year-old Gillian Duffy, who was out to buy a loaf of bread and, as one paper put it, ended up making "Brown Toast."

Duffy asked Brown a series of questions, including one on immigration, an issue that is as politically charged in Britain as it is in the United States. It all seemed a civil and harmless conversation. But back with his aides, an angry Brown complained about having been told to talk to her at all and then called Duffy a "bigoted woman." He forgot he was wearing a live microphone.

Brown's comment, which came a day before the third and final debate of the campaign, quickly spiraled into a full-blown calamity for the Labor Party. It was broadcast and rebroadcast all-day and overnight. The coverage could not have been more devastating. The question is how devastating it will prove for Brown and his party.

Meanwhile on this side of the pond, America's own center-left party, the Democrats, has, with sympathetic journalists cheering on, spent the past year attacking voters as bigots. Maybe Brown was just trying to mimic their success.

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